For the second day in a row in mid-October, René Bross got a call from Ridgeview Elementary about a problem with her 10-year-old son. She feared it was another altercation with his teacher, like the day before.
When she arrived this time, she found her son, who is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, face down on the ground, with the principal and a teacher's aide on top of him.
Bross took him away and told the school he was never coming back. She was notified shortly after that her son had been suspended for three days and charged with fourth-degree assault. To this day, she says she has no idea what her son did to end up on the ground.
"It traumatized him greatly," Bross says. "He has a fear of officers taking him to the ground like that. He had nightmares for a long time."
Bross told this story in front of representatives from Spokane Public Schools and other community organizations in a meeting May 9 on how to improve school discipline practices in the district. Her account represents just one side of a complex issue in Spokane: For every parent who says their child was mistreated, there's a teacher who says they don't have the support needed to protect the classroom from a misbehaving student.
[For more of this story, written by Wilson Criscone, go to http://www.inlander.com/spokan.../Content?oid=2797208]
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